


Will You Be There in the Morning?

by celeistic



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Drugs, M/M, Marijuana, Panic Attack, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 23:31:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17990585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeistic/pseuds/celeistic
Summary: Dan smoking isn't something new to Phil, in fact he's done it with him before. But it's been quite a while. This time around Dan and Phil talk about something they don't really talk about.





	Will You Be There in the Morning?

Phil’s thing in university was alcohol. Not in the way that it was an addiction, a bad habit. No, it was just something he partook in along with the rest of his housemates at least every other weekend. He was no stranger to shots of vodka that burned like the smell of gasoline in your nose. Tequila shots where you lick the salt off your hand and suck on a lime. And he was no stranger to waking up and having it all come back up tasting even worse than the first time.  
  
But those times were a long while ago. Phil hadn’t destroyed his liver like that in what felt like forever. Sure, he enjoyed his drinks when out with friends or at celebratory events. But God, he hadn’t been drunk in a while. When you’re working day in and day out there’s no time to get drunk. There’s no time to be 22 again. He’s reminded of this when he looks at himself in the bathroom mirror and notices the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He’s not 22 anymore. In fact, he’s ten years from it. Closer to 40 than 22.  
  
He forgets that his counterpart isn’t the same age as him. But he remembers when one night when he comes home from running a quick trip down to Tesco, and finds Dan in their living room - sitting on the floor next to their coffee table as he packs something into a crystallized container.  
  
Phil hadn’t seen it in years. But he knew of the quartz pipe.  
  
Weed was Dan’s thing in university and continued to be something he partook in when he could afford to. He even had the same person provide it for him - a girl he had known from university who had just happened to find her place in London like he did. If Phil thought about it for too long, he would get jealous of those green eyes and wondered if they gave Dan more than he could.  
  
But at least he doesn’t also find her occupying the apartment. Just Dan and the pipe and the television playing Spotify - a playlist of Dan’s titled “for fucking”. Phil tries to not think about who he envisions fucking to these songs.  
  
“Is it that time again?” Phil asks out loud to announce his presence to his friend - who nearly drops the crystal filled with green as he shudders in surprise.  
  
“Oh my God Phil, you can’t do that! You’ll make me lose my nugs.” Dan gasps, but his lips are curled into a smile and his brown eyes show no signs of actual anger.  
  
“Sorry, I’ll keep your nugs in mind next time.” Phil laughs. He sets the Tesco bag down on the coffee table and sits on the floor next to Dan.  
  
He watches as Dan takes the end of the pipe to his mouth and takes a small Bic black lighter to the end where all the marijuana is packed in. Dan closes his eyes as he inhales. His pink lips withdraw from the pipe and he sits for a moment. His eyes closed and just breathing - it looks peaceful. He looks peaceful. Something that Phil isn’t used to seeing from Dan.  
  
Then smoke comes from Dan’s nostrils and he opens his eyes. They’re already a little glassy. His dark brown eyes meet Phil’s blue ones and he gives a laugh.  
  
“Do you want to try?” Dan asks, offering the pipe to Phil. Who is suddenly taken back to when Dan first ever smoked in front of him, when they were freshly living in Manchester. Phil’s skin didn’t wrinkle the way it does now and Dan refused to let his hair curl. He vaguely remembers that night, him and Dan giggled as they sat out on their balcony. The feeling was warm and tingly. It had made him sleepy. Phil remembers that he didn’t even sleep in his room, but where had he fallen asleep?  
  
“Sure,” Phil accepts, taking the pipe from Dan’s hands; their fingers brushing past each other.  
  
Phil puts his lips to the pipe, pushing past the voice in his head that tells him he can still feel Dan’s lips on it. He watches as Dan’s thumb presses on the lighter to create a flame.  
  
“Suck in,” the brown-haired boy tells him and he does as he’s told. Immediately, he is hit with a taste similar to when you walk past a freshly mowed law and his brain tells him this is familiar.  
  
He barely even notices when Dan slowly takes the pipe from his mouth and for the first time he tries to inhale, but instead his throat tightens and he begins to cough aggressively.  
  
“Oh no, Phil, come on now.” Dan mutters in a tone that Phil can’t exactly describe. He feels his friend pat him on his back as he continues to cough for a while. It feels like forever that he’s coughing, but eventually it does stop and his throat doesn’t feel so tight.  
  
“Here, lets try this again. But we’ll do it differently, okay?” the younger boy suggests. Phil nods in response.  
  
He watches as Dan takes the pipe to his mouth and repeats the process. But instead of inhaling the smoke, he holds it in his mouth. Phil’s heart stops when Dan scoots himself closer to him. Dan’s long legs are sprawled on either side of Phil’s legs that are still crossed.  
  
His heart increases as Dan takes his left hand and presses it against Phil’s face. His hand is so warm. It fills him with the feeling you get when you step into the summer sun and it hits your skin; radiates through your body, from your head to your toes. Phil wonders if he’s high even if he choked on the smoke, there’s a voice in the back of his head that tells him he knows the truth. But he doesn’t listen to it for long.  
  
Dan uses his thumb placed on Phil’s chin to gently have Phil open his mouth, which he does without hesitation. His friend moves his face closer and Phil thinks that his heart is going to leap out of his throat and into Dan’s mouth. The tight feeling in his chest is similar to just a moment ago when he was choking. The feeling increases as Dan opens his mouth with his lips millimeters from Phil’s. They are so close that Phil is sure that he felt Dan’s chapped lips for a split moment but he’s not sure and he doesn’t want to ask.  
  
Dan breathes the smoke into Phil’s mouth and Phil tries to focus on breathing for once. He tastes the same grass sort of flavor again, but it isn’t as harsh and it’s easier to breathe it in.  
  
Once Dan finishes he moves his face away and leans back on his hands. Phil feels calmer and he’s not sure if it’s the marijuana or if it’s Dan not being so close to him.  
  
“Did that feel better?” Dan asks, his shimmer brown eyes are dilated and the whites are turning red. Phil nods his head in agreement, because overall - yes it was easier to get the smoke like that.  
  
But Dan doesn’t repeat the process. Instead he teaches Phil that when starting to smoke - less is more and to not intake so much that you can’t handle it. And soon enough, they’ve made their way through the gram that was packed in the pipe.  
  
They’ve moved from sitting down to lying down on their carpeted apartment floor. The soft music still fills the room but occasionally one of the boys will say something that doesn’t entirely make sense or will say something so simple, but their brains think it’s the funniest thing they’ve heard. Dan’s sharp, loud laugh fills the apartment and Phil tries to imagine a world where he didn’t hear it anymore, the thought makes his eyes water but his eyes have started to burn so he doesn’t think much more about it. He’s not crying. There’s no way.  
  
Then there’s a moment of silence. The boys are in their own thoughts. Phil wonders if Dan’s thinking about him as much he’s thinking of Dan. Probably not, Phil concludes.  
  
He’s probably thinking about that girl with the green eyes. Phil wishes his eyes were green. And he wishes his hair was longer. He wishes his body wasn’t a boy’s and he wishes he could give Dan what a girl could.  
  
Because maybe Dan would love him.  
  
“Hey Dan,” Phil says, his voice creaks a bit. Like an old wooden door. His feelings are knocking and begging to be let in.  
  
“Yes, Phil?” Dan replies, Phil doesn’t notice, but Dan shifts beside him. Propping himself on his hands - he hasn’t heard Phil’s voice sound like that in a long time.  
  
“Do you and Avery have sex?” Phil asks. His voice is a whisper now. Like he’s afraid of the answer.  
  
Dan furrows his brows as he looks down at Phil’s face, who has his eyes closed and his face scrunched in the way someone trying not to look at a horror movie. He’s not too sure who he’s talking to anymore. He knows it’s Phil, but it’s not a part of Phil he’s very familiar with. Phil doesn’t talk about these sorts of things.  
  
“I mean...we used to, it’s been a long while since we have. But it’s not like a relationship thing...just...sometimes we have sex. We’ve got needs.” Dan explains honestly. There’s no reason to lie here.  
  
“Why don’t you date her? Why don’t you date anyone?” Phil follows up quickly. He opens his blue eyes and connect them with Dan’s dark brown ones. Phil counts the freckles across Dan’s nose. Dan notices the way Phil’s eyes crease at the outer edges. Phil wonders if Dan misses his freckles when they leave for the winter. Dan wonders when Phil started getting old right before his eyes.  
  
Dan feels a lump in his throat before he speaks, but the words flow from his mouth like a river - he’s wanted to say them for a long time, but Phil never acted as if he wanted to know them.  
  
“I think I’ve been dating someone for the last nine years,” he answers finally.  
  
“What do you - Phil is unable to finish his words as Dan presses his chapped lips against his. It’s weird, because the kiss is upside down but at the same time it’s everything Phil needs. He closes his eyes as he leans into the kiss finally, tears roll out of his eyes when they close. Why is he crying? He isn’t sad. Is he really this happy?  
  
Somehow the two of them, without breaking from the kiss, move to sitting up again and Dan wraps his legs around Phil’s waist as their lips move together. They move like they’ve moved together before. Like dance partners.  
  
In the back of Phil’s mind, he remembers the rest of that night in their Manchester apartment. He had fallen asleep in Dan’s bedroom that night.  
  
In the midst of his thoughts, Phil ends up on his back on the floor again, but this time Dan is on top of him. Dan grinds against his hip against his leg and Phil feels Dan’s erection. Phil gasps and Dan bites on his lower lip.  
  
But if this is how he ended up in Dan’s bed that night in Manchester. What happened after? Why was it never this? Why hadn’t it been them the last nine years?  
  
Phil feels his heart increase, but it’s not in a good way.  
  
“Dan, Dan,” he begins, his voice trembling.  
  
The smaller boy stops and sits up on his knees. His brown eyes filled with worry. Phil sits up as well.  
  
Phil feels his head start to spin and like he can’t catch his breath.  
  
“Hey, Phil, what’s wrong?” Dan’s voice asks him, but it sounds distant. Like Dan’s ten feet away instead of right in front of him.  
  
Phil opens his mouth, because he can feel the words knocking at the door - they’re banging their fists furiously - but it’s like his brain has forgotten what English sounds like and he can’t say anything. His mouth is just cotton dry.  
  
“Hey, can I put my arms around you?” Dan asks, Phil’s eyes are closed because he feels like if he opens them he’s going to be sick on their white carpet floor. Slowly though, he gives Dan a nod.  
  
The curly-haired boy moves himself so that he can wrap his arms around Phil, his right hand is on Phil’s shoulder and his thumb rubs circles into it. It’s been a long time since Dan’s seen his friend have a panic attack. He actually can’t recall the last time this has happened. But Dan knows that Phil breaks a lot more than what he lets him see. He knows Phil likes to keep it together because Dan’s the one with an actual mental illness. As if that meant the older one couldn’t express all of his deep, dark emotions.  
  
Dan places his head against Phil’s shoulder.  
  
“You’re okay, Phil, you’re okay. Breathe, breathe.” he whispers.  
  
He listens to him breathe deeply, trying to control his heart rate.  
  
“I’m not doing just because I’m high. I love you even when I’m not high. I’m sorry I don’t know how to love when I’m not high.” Dan murmurs.  
  
He feels Phil relax a bit against him.  
  
“Why has it been so long?” Phil asks quietly.  
  
Dan bits down on his lower lip for a moment as he thinks. There’s no good fucking explanation for it other than his own fears holding him back. Their lives have been too fucking busy. They don’t fucking talk about their feelings. And they don’t fucking try hard enough.  
  
“All of the reasons I can think of right now are just excuses, Phil. And you don’t deserve excuses. I don’t want to give you that anymore. You deserve way more than excuses. I don’t want it to be that way anymore.” Dan explains, pressing his face into the skin of Phil’s neck - breathing in his usual cologne.  
  
“If we go to bed tonight, will you still be there?” Phil asks.  
  
“Yes, absolutely. I’ll always still be here.” Dan answers.  
  
“Can we go to bed?” Phil suggests.  
  
Dan nods his head, and he stands to his feet. A little shaky at first because that’s just the thing that happens when you smoke and stand up for the first time. But he holds out his hands to Phil and he helps him stand to his feet. The two boys make their way to Dan’s bedroom and together they work to peel each other’s clothes off.  
  
They climb underneath the black and white sheets, and press their torsos against one another. Phil takes in the warmth of Dan pressed up against his bare skin. Dan takes in feeling Phil’s soft skin in between his fingers as he wraps his arms around him and rests his hands on Phil’s back. They spend a few moments looking at each other in the dark. They don’t say anything but their eyes trace each other’s faces in the dim light of the bedroom. Phil wonders when Dan’s face got so angular, contoured, chiseled like a Roman sculpture. Dan wonders when Phil’s eyes became a darker shade of blue, like the deeper parts of the ocean. They don’t say anything as they both close their eyes and fall asleep.  
  
They miss the morning, the clock tells Phil that it is 12:36 in the afternoon when he wakes up.  
  
And Dan’s freckled back pressed into his torso tells him that it’s a new day.


End file.
